https://emsenn.net/tags/cybernetics/ Recent content in Cybernetics on emsenn.net Hugo en Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/humanities/domains/sociology/domains/cybernetic-postliberalism/texts/cybernetic-governance/ Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/humanities/domains/sociology/domains/cybernetic-postliberalism/texts/cybernetic-governance/ <p>Classical models of governance describe a sovereign who decides, a bureaucracy that implements, and subjects who comply or resist. Cybernetic postliberalism replaces this with distributed feedback loops. No one commands the system. It self-regulates — and the regulation includes <em>you</em>, interpreting what just happened.</p> <p>This text examines the cybernetic mechanism at the heart of the framework. For the conceptual foundations, see <a href="../terms/californication.md" class="link-internal">californication</a> (which explains the full circuit) and <a href="../terms/coherent-confusion.md" class="link-internal">coherent confusion</a> (which explains &ldquo;the load is the system&rdquo;). This text shows how those concepts operate against a specific case.</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/biology/domains/physiology/terms/homeostasis/ Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/biology/domains/physiology/terms/homeostasis/ <p>Homeostasis is the maintenance of relatively stable internal conditions in a living system despite changes in the external environment. The term was coined by Walter Cannon in 1926, drawing on Claude Bernard&rsquo;s earlier concept of the <em>milieu intérieur</em> — the idea that the internal environment of an organism must remain constant for life to continue.</p> <p>The mechanism is feedback: a sensor detects deviation from a set point, a controller compares the deviation to the target, and an effector acts to reduce the deviation. Body temperature, blood pH, glucose concentration — these are maintained not by static equilibrium but by continuous corrective activity. Homeostasis is dynamic stability: the system is always moving, always correcting, and the appearance of constancy is the product of ceaseless adjustment.</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/reflexive-deficit/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/reflexive-deficit/ <p>A <strong>reflexive deficit</strong> is the condition in which a system operates with high first-order competence — correcting errors, responding to inputs, adapting outputs — but lacks the second-order capacity to monitor whether its own operational frame remains appropriate to the situation it is meant to serve.</p> <p>The concept draws on two established cybernetic distinctions. In <a href="./single-loop-double-loop-learning.md" class="link-internal">Argyris and Schön&rsquo;s</a> terms, a system with reflexive deficit performs single-loop learning — it corrects within a fixed frame — but cannot perform double-loop learning: questioning whether the frame itself should be revised [@argyris1978]. In <a href="./second-order-cybernetics.md" class="link-internal">von Foerster&rsquo;s</a> terms, the system operates at the first order — it processes, regulates, generates — but does not observe its own observation: it cannot take its own categories as objects of examination [@vonfoerster1981].</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/engineering/domains/tech/domains/computing/domains/internet/domains/web/texts/semantic-web-jiangshi-web/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/engineering/domains/tech/domains/computing/domains/internet/domains/web/texts/semantic-web-jiangshi-web/ <h2 id="abstract"><a href="#abstract" class="heading-anchor" aria-label="Link to this section">¶</a>Abstract </h2> <p>The Semantic Web did not fail. RDF graphs are queried daily, knowledge graphs underpin search engines, <a href="../../../../../../science/domains/information/concepts/biomedical-ontologies.md" class="link-internal">biomedical ontologies</a> coordinate research across institutions. The problem is not that the Semantic Web stopped working but that it works in a particular way — data circulates, queries execute, triples accumulate, and none of it can question whether its own categories still fit.</p> <p>Chinese folklore has a figure for this condition: the jiangshi (僵尸), the hopping corpse. A body whose joints have locked, animated by residual vital energy but incapable of flexible movement. The jiangshi is not dead. Its problem is more specific: it cannot change how it moves.</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/single-loop-double-loop-learning/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/single-loop-double-loop-learning/ <p>Single-loop learning corrects errors within a fixed frame. Double-loop learning questions the frame itself. The distinction comes from Chris Argyris and Donald Schön&rsquo;s work on organizational learning [@argyris1978].</p> <p>A thermostat is single-loop. It detects that the temperature has drifted from the set point and activates the heater. The correction works because the goal — maintain 68°F — is assumed. The thermostat never asks whether 68°F is the right temperature for a room that has changed its use, its occupants, or its season. It regulates within a frame it cannot examine.</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/single-loop-double-loop-learning_1/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/single-loop-double-loop-learning_1/ <p>Single-loop learning corrects errors within a fixed frame. Double-loop learning questions the frame itself. The distinction comes from Chris Argyris and Donald Schön&rsquo;s work on organizational learning [@argyris1978].</p> <p>A thermostat is single-loop. It detects that the temperature has drifted from the set point and activates the heater. The correction works because the goal — maintain 68°F — is assumed. The thermostat never asks whether 68°F is the right temperature for a room that has changed its use, its occupants, or its season. It regulates within a frame it cannot examine.</p> https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/structural-coupling/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/science/domains/information/domains/cybernetics/terms/structural-coupling/ <p>Structural coupling describes the relationship between an <a href="./autopoiesis.md" class="link-internal">autopoietic</a> system and its environment. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela introduced the concept to explain how operationally closed systems interact with a world they do not directly represent [@maturana1980; @maturana1987].</p> <p>An autopoietic system is operationally closed: its internal processes refer to its own states, not to an external reality. But it is not isolated. The system exists in an environment that perturbs it — temperature changes, chemical gradients, predators, signals from other systems. Structural coupling names the ongoing history of mutual perturbation between system and environment, in which both change over time without either directing the other.</p>